The Online Film Critics Society has put forward Babel, Children of Men, The Departed, Pan’s Labyrinth and United 93 as its top five Best Pictures of the Year, with a winner to be announced on Monday, 1.8.06. Four days hence — why don’t they just announce the winners now? What do they think they’re doing, generating suspense? This is not an Alfred Hitchcock film.
Two good things: they nominated The Departed‘s Mark Wahlberg ias Best Supporting Actor, and they nominated Emmanuel Lubezki for his cinematography of Children of Men.
The Best Foreign Film nominees omitted The Lives of Others….what’s that about? The five are The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, L’Enfant, Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo’s film is obviously doing double-duty), Volver and Water.
The Best Director noms went to Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), Paul Greengrass (United 93), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).
I can’t list any more….my heart’s not in it. Here’s the Variety story link.